Apple Releases New iPod Shuffle with ‘VoiceOver’ Support

What do we have here? A brand new iPod shuffle. A what? Oh…you mean Apple still makes these tiny things? Coming in at a whopping 1.8 inches tall and 0.3 inches wide, it is the world’s smallest music player. The iPod shuffle Apple page shows it being smaller than your house key. It is astonishing that they are fitting 4GB of space on this little baby. The controls were removed from the player itself and are now located on the earbud cord. This feature is pretty nice, but what happens when your brand new kitten chews through your earbud cord? The clip on the backside of the shuffle is now forged from stainless steel, so it probably wont snap off. Also, You can now add mulitple playlists from iTunes. I had no idea that wasn’t an option with the old Shuffles, but I’m glad they have it now. The newest and probably the coolest feature of the new iPod Shuffle is the “Voiceover” support. This is how it basically works: you are listening to a great song but forget the name of it and who sings it. What do you do? Look down at the screen right? WRONG, the iPod shuffle doesn’t have a screen. This new feature allows you to press a button and a voice will read you the information of that song while the music fades low. It will also tell you when it needs to be charged. All the features of VoiceOver can be found here.

This new shuffle actually seems pretty cool and it sits at a nice $79, a great price point considering the iPod nano 8GB is $149. Speaking from design though, It looks like a small piece of aluminum. It comes in silver and black, but knowing Apple, they will offer more colors in the future. I will have to try it out and see if I can make the move to screen-less iPod. They are shipping now from the Apple site.